Offline Book "Lending" Costs U.S. Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion

[Falbe Publishing]

Years ago when I was researching the publishing business, I consistently read that libraries were an important market because they did not return books like bookstores. Library systems make purchases and keep the books. If every library in the country bought my books, I'd be on easy street. As far as I know any publisher is happy to sell to libraries. What industry wouldn't want a built in buyer funded by tax payer money? What do you think all those lobbyists in D.C. are trying to accomplish half the time? Seems like large publishing companies should be pushing for more libraries with extravagant budgets.

Anyway I love libraries. The emergence of the digital age makes them even more important because most libraries supply free internet access. This represents the sole point of access to the internet for many people.

[markbot]

The great thing is that most physical libraries will soon become obsolete as information moves to the net! The majority of the over 100,000 libraries, most subsidized with taxes, can be downsized. Over 3 million square feet of library space is built each year...which can be reduced.

Public libraries are important for a similar reason as to why public education is important. There is an economic theory that says income growth is a function of the knowledge base and the number of people working toward innovation. Even free market economists agree that there are significant positive economic externalities to libraries.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

I have always used libraries. The most useful technologic advance in my opinion was the online catalog. The ability to go online anytime and reserve a book, which would be delivered to the small library 3 blocks from my house, really increased my useage. The only thing that stopped me from using the library exclusively was embarrasment over the type of books I was requesting. Now that I can do it all online, and never have to look the librarian in the face (she is very nice, and my paranoia is unjustified) is fabulous. And it does cost the publishers. Just as it costs them when I shopped at Books a Million, used a preferred card, waited for the paperback to come out, borrowed the book from a friend. We should all be in jail.

I fully understand. I keep those kind of books in a briefcase. I can't let people see Mills, Paine, and Rand....

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I fully understand. I keep those kind of books in a briefcase. I can't let people see Mills, Paine, and Rand....

[rwizard]

That was great. It's kind of funny, the first thing to get electronically pirated is software. But how many lawsuits has the software industry filed about it? they figured out long ago that they could somewhat limit piracy by making it inconvenient and at least a little difficult to do. After that, they are not really loosing much money in most cases. Examples of software that gets pirated include everything from games to operating systems to server software. Of those, the one most affected is probably the computer game industry (the most likely that someone who would have bought the game will get a cracked version instead). But even in their case gaming consoles advancing and getting more popular is likely more of a threat than the percentage of lost sales to piracy.

Now all of the above does not make piracy right in any form, for any product; however, attempting to stop it completely is ludicrous. Generally suing people that will not be able to pay the damages (and are as often a grandparent that was not aware what their teenage grandchild was doing but is held liable because it is their computer/internet connection) is a PR nightmare and some people are not willing to take a chance on the quality of the "item" in question so they pirate it first and buy it if they like it (giving the industry a sale they might not otherwise have had).

Just my 2 cents

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I fully understand. I keep those kind of books in a briefcase. I can't let people see Mills, Paine, and Rand....

Do they still keep those kinds of books in the library?

[Randolphlalonde]

Content deleted by user.

My post was leading this thread off topic. I apologize.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Randolphlalonde

As an independent author who makes his living primarily from eBooks, I can't help but see piracy as a problem.

I do offer a lot of free material, entire books, so if people would like to read my work without paying for an ebook, there's over 200,000 words available. When they start stealing the work that has a cover price associated with it, they're literally taking bread off the table.

Libraries are a good idea, even digital ones, but only if there are reasonable limitations, as there are in traditional printed book libraries, or some kind of royalty system.

Just thought I'd throw my two cents in.

If it's a digital work, they can't steal it, it's impossible. Unless you placed that work upon a usb stick and locked it away somewhere, then it could be stolen. If not, if it is in fact a digital work that is being 'copied' not 'stolen' then why use the emotive and inaccurate word 'stealing'? Sharing is caring after all.

[Spectrum]

Funny related comic strip:

http://archive.salon.com/comics/boll...boll/story.gif

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Funny related comic strip:

http://archive.salon.com/comics/boll...boll/story.gif

Love it

[kennyc]

Love it!

[Randolphlalonde]

Content deleted by user.

My post was leading this thread off topic. I apologize.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Randolphlalonde

All right, let's set the word 'stealing' aside and not get hung up.

The fact you're ignoring is that if people didn't actually pay for my work in eBook format I wouldn't be able to write full time. I'm not being over dramatic, that's just a fact.

When I can eat for free, have decent free lodgings, free electricity, and other necessities provided for free, then I won't mind giving all my work away for free. Until then, I'll hope that my readers continue to respect the hard work I put into writing and pay the reasonable prices I ask for eBooks.

Try to reverse the scenario. If I came into your work place and told you that you weren't getting paid for any of your work, how would you feel? Imagine if, because you weren't paid for a whole chunk of the time you put in, you couldn't pay rent? Buy as much food as you needed?

I barely keep my head above water in the first place. Piracy, or unauthorized lending, or stealing, or borrowing without permission, or whatever you'd like to call it (pointless semantics, all of it), would literally snatch the opportunity to write full time away. My readers wouldn't be happy about it in the long run, either. Instead of three to four books a year, they'd have to suffice with one every year or two, because I'd have to spend more time at a job I didn't want than I did writing.

Only digital files... start thinking about both sides.

It's not pointless semantics, it's the difference between what 'is' and what 'is not'. A giraffe is not a Volkswagen Beetle, that's why they have different names. Your whole assumption is based upon a fallacy that payment would have occurred if the file wasn't copied. Whereas the reality is far different from that, and often the copying and distribution of your work freely may gain you fans and revenue in the long run.

As to the workplace argument, it doesn't hold up. If you came into my work place and said I wasn't getting paid I would phone my Union rep and walk out of that workplace, that's because most workplaces you are paid for your time. But you don't work in a workplace, you have a private business that is writing and that has no set hours and is is subject to far more than just piracy (unproven to affect revenue one way or the other of any digital artifact) for any derived income.

I do think about both sides, it's just that your argument makes no sense on anything but an emotional level. In the digital realm a download is not equal to a sale, and it never will be. I'm sorry if that's a rude awakening, but that's how it is and it's not going to change when you throw around words like stealing.

[unicorn23]

Originally Posted by markbot

The great thing is that most physical libraries will soon become obsolete as information moves to the net! The majority of the over 100,000 libraries, most subsidized with taxes, can be downsized. Over 3 million square feet of library space is built each year...which can be reduced.

Yep, as a librarian, I can tell you that this day is going to be a very long time coming. The idea that "everything" is going to be electronic anytime soon is so not going to happen. Even the Library of Congress (with the biggest library budget in the world) has some miniscule percentage of their collection that's digital, and it's not changing very fast (digitisation requires budgets - big budgets).

Don't get me wrong, we love digital, but saying libraries won't need physical space in the next few years is a total fallacy - it's not called the long tail for nothing : )

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Randolphlalonde

The fact you're ignoring is that if people didn't actually pay for my work in eBook format I wouldn't be able to write full time. I'm not being over dramatic, that's just a fact.

Do you expect that print books will only be read by one person, the original purchaser? Do you think of every used copy sold at a yard sale as lost royalties and cheating you out of your rightful payment?

Much of the problems with ebook filesharing is that there's no simple, legal way to transfer ownership or loan them out, the way that's done with pbooks. And authors have *never* been able to expect 1 purchase=1 reader.

With ebooks, there's the issue that it's as easy to make a copy as to loan the original. Easier, in many cases; removing data from a hard drive is harder than copying it. But if the DRM servers allowed one user to transfer ownership of their ebook files to someone else by sending in an email ("send a transfer code to email X; when it goes through, un-authorize my computer/kindle/PDA from this ebook"), there'd be a lot less incentive to crack DRM, and a lot less feeling of "now that I've done all that work so I can let my friend read it, why not just share it with the world?"

Ebook filesharing started as scans-and-conversions of books that weren't available as ebooks. (My txt copy of Dragonriders of Pern is dated 1998.) It continued, and grew, as commercial ebooks became available, because publishers decided to exploit a business model that wasn't possible with physical books: prevent transfer of ownership, so every reader would have to make a separate purchase!

Had they also charged 1/3 the paperback price for these books, people might've calmly accepted that. When they charge the same or comparable amounts for paper & ebook editions, they can expect readers to demand the same freedoms with their purchases.